


ERB's Perfect Pancake Procedure

by DarkWaterFalls



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Pancakes, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 18:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's taken Bitty years of practice to develop his skills, but if you asked him for a list of pancake priorities he'd probably give you this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ERB's Perfect Pancake Procedure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idrilka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilka/gifts).



> This is a slightly belated birthday and thank you gift for the wonderful Idrilka. I hope you had a fantastic weekend, and thank you for writing "maybe i'm waking up", it was a fucking gift of a fic.
> 
> This is has to be the biggest unmitigated piece of fluff that I've ever written. Go me!
> 
> Items are also not in chronological order, just fyi.

**1 – Make your batter in advance, preferably the night before.**

 

Shitty stares impassively at the open fridge. He understands that the majority of the beer was now in the basement, he’s accepted the creepy-stair-related sacrifices that he’d need to now make to fetch booze, but he didn’t understand why the protein shakes and generic Stop ‘N’ Shop red bull had now followed them.

 

Bitty wanders into the kitchen, humming happily, a watermelon under one arm and a bottle of vodka in the other hand.

 

“Bitty…” Shitty asks, “Why is there a bucket in the fridge?”

 

**2 – Use multiple pans when making for many**

 

Ransom carefully sets the package down on the table and then shakes out his hands. “Bro,” he asks a sitting Holster, “D’you think I can get out of weight training today if I show Jack the weight of this parcel that I just carted from the post office?”

 

Holster stands and checks the label, clearly addressed for Bitty. “Why’re you picking up Bitty’s mail?” he asks, “You know the weird kinda stuff he gets delivered.”

 

Ransom shrugs. “He brought me breakfast to class this morning as a favour, so I offered. This thing must weigh, like, ten fuckin’ kilos.”

 

The front door slams, and Bitty comes in as Holster sits down again, dumping his keys and shopping bag beside the parcel. He smiles at Ransom, hands him a Gatorade from the bag, and says, “Thanks for grabbing this Rans, I didn’t really have time this afternoon.”

 

Ransom pops the cap as Bitty rips into the box, asking, “What’s in it dude, it weighs a fuckin’ ton.”

 

Bitty pulls out an impressive looking heavy-bottomed pan, all shiny enamel around the sides. “My Moo Maw said she’d buy me a moving in present, so I asked for a new frying pan,” he answers, making a small, happy noise in his throat as he examines the bottom of the pan.

 

**3 – Use a jug to measure out mixture**

Bitty has turned the cupboards upside down trying to find his jug. It’s not a particularly nice looking jug, nothing particularly remarkable or distinguishable about it either, but it’s the perfect volume for pancake distribution, and it pours really well.

 

And Bitty can’t find it.

 

And they’re having pancakes for breakfast tomorrow morning.

 

Chowder wanders in, carrying the Haus mop and bucket.

 

“Chowder, sweetheart,” he asks, “Have you seen my pancake jug?”

 

“Um,” Chowder pauses, “I think I saw Shitty with a jug upstairs? But Lardo told me to go do my chores before I could see what he was doing with it.”

 

“Oh no,” Bitty murmurs softly, before heading up to Shitty and Jack’s bathroom.

 

**4 – Your first pancakes of the batch will be awful**

Bitty is always last to the table, especially if he’s been cooking, and he usually sits beside Jack. There are various reasons for this table placement, and their regular seating plan. The seat beside Jack is the closest to the cooker, and Bitty is always the first into the kitchen at the weekends. Rans and Holster like to sit beside each other, and Lardo and Shitty like to throw things at each other from opposite ends of the table. They claim beer pong training, but Jack calls bullshit.

 

Jack frowns as he watches Bitty dump sugar on his plate of burnt pancakes. They don’t look anywhere near as good as the plates he’d served up to the rest of the table, but they’re soon smothered in sugar and fruit.

 

“You burning off that sugar later, eh, Bittle?” Jack asks softly over the noise of the rest of the table.

 

Bitty snorts into his breakfast, “Mr Zimmermann, reject pancakes need a lot of love to get them edible.”

 

**5 – Chef always gets reject dibs**

Jack has to change their checking practice time in spring semester to fit better with his thesis and meeting schedule. As a result, he frequently hangs about to help Bitty with breakfast on Saturday mornings after they’ve both showered. They’ve already developed a good routine.

 

Bitty gets the pancake mix and his pans ready; Jack brews the coffee, puts the bacon in the oven, sets the table and gets the juice, milk and spreads out of the fridge. He stands beside the cooker as Bitty begins pouring out the mixture into each of his two large pans, drinking coffee and poised at the ready to plate up pancakes.

 

The rejects - four this morning - get dumped to a side plate and then kept warm in the oven as Bitty picks up pancake speed.

 

Soon enough, Jack is nudging Bitty’s knees out of the way to take the bacon out, and then passing plates of pancakes to Lardo, Shitty, Ransom and Holster, who’re already arguing over whose turn it is to buy the milk.

 

Jack pulls out the reject plate just as Bitty is plating up Jack’s pancakes, and, quick as anything, Jack does a switch and now has two perfect and two reject pancakes on his plate. He quickly moves to the table and is followed by a slightly confused Bitty.

 

“You said it yourself Bittle, chef gets reject dibs.” Jack say, as close to cheerful as he can get.

 

**6 – Birthday boy/girl/person gets their choice**

Eric knocks and sticks his head around Jack’s door, face slightly uncertain, as Jack is unpacking his new clothes from home. “Hey?” he asks, “What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

 

Jack frowns. “We’ve got practice tomorrow, Bittle.”

 

Bitty slumps back against the wall and rolls his eyes, “I know that Jack, but the dining halls aren’t open yet,” he says, exasperated. “I can make pancakes here for everyone.”

 

Jack pauses over one of his bags, socks in hand forgotten. “Um, yeah, that sounds fine.” He says finally, slightly confused, “Why’re you asking me?”

 

Bitty throws his arms up, “Because you’re the birthday boy!” he says, mock-exasperated, “You get to choose breakfast!”

 

Jack looks down at his socks, then up at Bitty, “Whole wheat…?” He asks, slightly puzzled by the question, “Blueberry?”

 

Bitty just rolls his eyes again before nudging open the door with his foot, “Alright mister diet plan, but these will be the best healthy pancakes you’ve ever had.”

 

Whole wheat Greek yogurt blueberry pancakes.

 

They’re amazing, indeed some of the best Jack’s ever had, and they’re so nice he sends his mom a picture of them. He doesn’t even feel too bad that Bitty has given him a double portion.

 

**7 – Mix it up**

With Christmas fast approaching the Haus, Bitty is clearing the cupboards of consumables in preparation for the winter break. Or at least that his excuse for the mountains of baking and pancake prep that he’s going through.

 

Nothing to do with the Team Captain that he’s just finished this semester’s food class with.

 

Nothing at all.

 

Dang it.

 

He’s making maple pancakes, he can’t fool himself.

 

Maple pancakes, with coffee butter.

 

The look on Jack’s face when he bites into them the first time is worth the hard labour. It’s not breakfast time yet, but Jack agrees, hungry after a workout and still in gym clothes. He looks amazing, makes sounds that are even better, and licks the coffee butter off his fingers when he’s done.

                          

 _I’m in so much trouble_ , Bitty thinks.

 

Jack smiles at him, and Bitty repeats the thought to himself, “Thanks Bittle, I needed that.” Jack says happily, gripping Bitty’s shoulder as he straightens from where he’s stood at the counter. “I guess I’ll be going for an extra-long run tomorrow to have them again, eh?”

 

So. Much. Trouble.

 

**8 – Keep things sweet**

 

Jack gave him a copy of his Grand-mère's crepe recipe, and Bitty is trying not to think too much into it.

 

It’s been photocopied from an old, handwritten, book, scribbled over in parts by French notes, but the recipe is still legible and translatable.

 

Bitty wonders how much this means to Jack, and fails in not thinking about it too much.

 

It’s the week before graduation, and Jack is getting noticeably antsier. Shitty is outright swearing most of the time, but Jack takes it out differently. Longer runs, more practices, and heavily bitten cuticles. Bitty has taken to dragging Jack around campus, to Annie’s, to The Pond, to Faber, and not even always as exercise.

 

He just wants to keep some more memories of Jack here. In this little northern college. With him.

 

He’s already prepped the crepe batter, so much thinner and smoother than he’s used to, and left the covered bucket in the fridge as per usual.

 

What he doesn’t expect is to still be awake in the early hours of the morning, standing close to a Jack Zimmermann that’s almost ready to gnaw his thumb off with worry. Jack’s explained why, eyes darting to Bitty’s, and it all makes sense. Jack’s anxiety about the team – the Falcs are apparently lovely, but that doesn’t change how Jack feels about the move – and the apartment that’s waiting for him in Providence (big, and already filled with furniture, but still so, so empty), is obvious to see.

 

So Bitty breaks out the bucket early, and they have a couple of 3am pancakes. It turns out crepe rejects aren’t as bad as other pancake rejects, especially when covered in lemon and sugar, so they eat them from the same plate, side by side in the Haus kitchen.

 

Then it happens again.

 

Jack has that happy look on his face again, and he’s licking his fingers clean again. And Bitty thinks, _shit_ , all over again.

 

Jack frowns and asks, “What’s wrong Bitty?”

 

Bitty slowly wipes his hands on the battered kitchen towel, and then passes it to Jack before clearing his throat, “I’d just like to…” he begins, and stops, before chickening out and saying something just as honest, but less dangerous, “I just don’t want this to be the last time we do this together, I don’t want to end up so close, but so far apart.”

 

He hears the soft click of Jack swallowing, and understands that – just like Jack’s fears – sometimes there isn’t an answer.

 

Then there’s the soft rasp of Jack’s dry knuckles on Bitty’s cheek, and Bitty is turning towards Jack fast enough to catch the determined expression on Jack’s face before they’re kissing softly, lips slotting together in the cool pre-dawn light of the Haus kitchen.

 

**9 – Eating together is always important**

Most of the Samwell team are sprawled out in Jack’s lounge and in Jack’s spare room, curled up on patches of floor in sleeping bags, suffering more from excessive food intake and not necessarily from excessive alcohol this time.

 

It was Thanksgiving yesterday, and the whole Haus and a third of the team came down to celebrate with Jack, who tolerated the imposition and helped Bitty out in the kitchen.

 

It wasn’t a coincidence that the team found out about them dating yesterday too.

 

It’d all gone perfectly to plan.

 

Today the Falconers have a game, and the Samwell team being here means that Bitty will get to sit in the Friends and Family section again and not feel so out of place, so obviously Jack’s. As if he’s wearing their relationship on his sleeve.

 

Because of the game today and the excess of yesterday, Jack is in desperate need of diet-approved sustenance this morning.

 

So, whole wheat Greek yogurt blueberry pancakes it is.

 

Bitty smiles over at Jack, sleep mussed and coffee warm, leaning against the counter beside the stove.

 

Yeah, things may not have stayed the same.

 

But this isn’t half bad either.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm clareithromycin on tumblr, come say hi!


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